In May Dave Brooker, 47, and Seb Griffiths, 49, plus Seb’s partner Vicki, took over the Foresters Arms in the village of Fairwarp.

They’d both worked for the Co-op and been friends for 30 years. But they never had any family time.

Seb and Vicky have four children, aged 5-15.

The Foresters Arms dates back to 1898 as a pub, although the building is much older.

Anyone who visits the pub gets a warm welcome, both from the landlords, and the locals.

But as they sit down for a drink or a delicious meal, they’re unaware that the Foresters holds a gruesome secret!

Says Seb;

In the early 1900s the landlord’s wife died during child birth and after this the landlord could not take it that she had passed away , so threw himself down the well leaving a couple of children on their own .

It’s been reported that since then bar staff have seen strange things happen like objects jumping off shelves on to the floor, music being turned up with no one near the system, the presence of someone in the pub but no one there, also it is said if you sit at table 7 you can see a female ghost sitting there crying.

Dave told me that the well, in the back of the pub, has an underground stream which links up to all the other wells in the village, and it’s possible to scuba dive around the village.

Well you can count me out! Woo!

One evening, Hubby John and I visited the Foresters for dinner.

Parking was easy, and our table was ready for us.

I chose a bottle of Cotes de Provence Rose and John had a lager shandy.

Pate

For starters, John chose pate, which came with ciabatta and chutney.

prawns

I had prawns with a chilli sauce. They arrived on skewers, cooked in a home-made tempura batter. And they were gorgeous!

Specials board

John decided to have Hunters’ Chicken off the Specials board, and I had medium rare Sirloin Steak.

Steak is often disappointing, even in expensive restaurants that claim to specialise in steaks. But mine was 100% perfect. Yes, 100%!

Huntsman’s chicken

I asked John how his chicken was, and he said something that sounded like Mm, yummy!

My steak was beautifully presented, with a big mushroom and tomato, and about half a packet of peas! The onion rings were set out in a chain, which looked really good.

Steak

As I have food intolerances and frozen chips often disagree with me (They’re often coated in chemicals to stop them turning black) I’d asked if Lorna the Chef could drop some new potatoes in the deep fat fryer to crisp them up.

When they were brought out in a dish, I was horrified to see that there were 9 of them! 9 potatoes!

I couldn’t eat that much for a Christmas dinner when I was a hungry teenager!

After eating as much as I could, I stared at the 7 remaining potatoes and cast a guilty glance towards the kitchen door.

I come from a generation where we were told, You’re not leaving the table until you’ve cleared your plate! There are children in the world starving who would be grateful for that food!

And the reply Well they can have mine then was usually greeted by a clip round the ear’ole.

Now, I didn’t expect Lorna to storm out of the kitchen and slap me round the head, but on the other hand, I could tell some scary Chef stories….

A friend of ours who is an absolutely perfect lady, was having lunch with a group of friends in a Kent pub, and she asked if something was fresh. And the chef burst out of the kitchen and threw them all out! The pub closed down a few weeks later.

Great food, great Customer Service, support of the Community, and a place where individuals can feel comfortable coming in.

Sadly, Sussex has a lot of pubs where people have moved nearby and complained about everything they do. Then they complain even more when the pub is forced to close, and it stands boarded up with graffiti all over it.

But Seb and Dave have been welcomed into the village and enthusiastically backed in everything they’ve done so far.

Well done Fairwarp! And we’ll definitely be using the Foresters as a regular place to visit, especially on Music Nights!

About Lyn

LYN FUNNELL CV (well, sort of!)
Lyn had very successful careers as an Air Hostess, Sales Rep, (she was one of only a couple of women. She beat all the men regularly, becoming the Top Rep in the UK, and 2nd in the world.) And then Catering took over. She did everything from the washing-up, to Silver Service Waitress, and Chef.
A few times, she had to cook the meal, dash round the other side and Silver Serve it!
In between all this, she wrote as often as she could, building up a reputation as a published short story writer, (Horror and a twist in the tale,) and a Poet.
She has appeared as a Performing Poet, and a Demo Chef.
Then she discovered the world of the Food & Travel Writer. And that’s what she has continued doing to this day.
Her main hobbies are Cookery and entering Competitions. She has won many prizes, including holidays and a moped.
She enjoys entering Competitions, submitting her original recipes. She was first in many Competitions, including the Good Housekeeping Millenium Menu, Fruits of France, Bernard Matthews Turkey Recipe, and appeared on BBC’s The One Show Spag Bol contest. She was one of three Finalists, coming 2nd, which makes her Britain’s Spag Bol Queen!
Now she runs B-C-ing-U! and loves it!
After several years of being messed around by Editors, and having loads of contacts, Lyn formed her own online Magazine, vowing to treat her writers fairly, and to do everything possible to further their careers, publicise their books, etc.
She now has a band of excellent regular writers, and the Magazine’s going from strength to strength!
Lyn’s online published books;
Adverse Camber
A collection of my published poems.
The First Book of Short Stories
The Second Book of Short Stories
The Third Book of Short Stories.
Many of these stories have been previously published.
St Anthony of Padua.
The Patron St of the Old.
A story of one woman’s terrible ordeal in a Home, and her family’s rescue of her.
The Girl Who Watched.
A Cuban girl is attacked by an English journalist & what follows!
Willy the Whizz & the Wormhole.
Suitable for Young Adults, aged 15-95!
Get Out Of Debt And Stay Out – Forever!
Unsympathetic, hard-hitting, realistic solutions to your problems.
All these books are published by Andrews UK Ltd
www.andrewsuk.com
No, I didn’t pay them to Vanity Publish!
They’re all available from Amazon, and many other online publishers.
LYN FUNNELL.

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